Mi Note is the giant Xiaomi phone you can’t have (REVIEW)

We all know the drill by now… Xiaomi makes budget phones that appeal by packing a lot of power into a tiny price tag. But with its newest phone, the Mi Note, Xiaomi is doing things a bit differently. This time, Xiaomi is aiming at the high-end, pitching the Mi Note up against the iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Note 4 in terms of size and ambitions.

What hasn’t changed is that the price is low – the Mi Note starts at just RMB 2,299, which is US$370. That’s only US$50 more than its previous flagship phone, the Mi4, which is now relegated to being Xiaomi’s mid-range device.

More accurately, the Mi4 and the Mi Note are like the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The looks and specs are very similar; the main difference is the size.

And what a size it is. The Mi Note comes with a 5.7-inch full HD screen. Xiaomi has managed to make it slightly thinner, lighter, and shorter than the iPhone 6 Plus, despite it packing a larger display than Apple’s gargantuan 6 Plus. Despite the clever design, it still looks and feels big. In your hand, the Mi Note looks big enough to be used to give someone a 50 Shades of Grey-style spanking.

Here are the specs:

OK, let’s dive into the Mi Note review for real.

Hardware

The Mi Note, at first glance, looks a lot like the Mi4, which is OK because the Mi4 is quite a handsome thing, as we established in our review last year. Aside from the monumental size and the larger screen, the main difference between Xiaomi’s top two phones is that the Mi Note has a very nicely rounded rear that curves in at the edges. It’s only a few millimeters, and it’s hard to capture in a photo (see below), but it helps make the Mi Note feel thinner than it is.